How Many Encounters?

[the Jester]

IME the pc who has to spend the most healing surges usually dictates when it's time to take an extended rest. So if you have an encounter or two with some really focused fire, it could happen pretty quickly, but on the other hand, if the monsters spread their damage out, it could be 6-8 encounters before the party is ready for an extended rest.

 

[Mengu]

It depends quite a bit on party composition too. A party with a lot of healing, but low damage output, needs to rest more often. A party with a lot of temporary hit points and high damage output needs to rest less often.

At low levels, defenders seem to go through 2-3 surges each combat. If they have 11 to start with, thats 4-5 combat encounters worth. If the party is ambushed, that number can quickly go down to 2-3 encounters, because when enemies land some lucky hits on the Rogue or Wizard, it's a pretty huge resource drain.

At higher levels, there is more healing help that doesn't necessarily involve triggering healing surges, and more encounter powers to use, so you don't need the dailies as quickly, and 6-7 encounters are easily doable, depending on the difficulty of the encounters.

 

[lukelightning]

Another important factor is the fickle finger of fate, aka the dice hate me.

You could plan an easy introductory encounter, and the next thing you know the party has used up all their second winds and healing words just because Nilbog the Golbin kept rolling 20s.

 

[Skyscraper]

I believe i remember reading in one of the WotC preview articles before 4E was released that somewhere around 6 encounters per day was to be the target. It's a rather unclear impression, but i've had it stick with me for some time now, for what it's worth.

Sky

 

[malacapricornis]

As a player you want to know what's expected so you don't plan on using every daily each encounter and then taking an ER. Knowing how to conserve resources is something I think that needs to be established OOC between DM and players.

 

[Mengu]

As a player you want to know what's expected so you don't plan on using every daily each encounter and then taking an ER. Knowing how to conserve resources is something I think that needs to be established OOC between DM and players.

I'll have to strongly disagree with this. If players manage to use every single daily power in an easy encounter, and want an ER, they haven't done a very good job of resource management, and there will be consequences. Resource management in the absence of prior knowledge is paramount to the skill arsenal of good players.

 

[malacapricornis]

Without any idea what is coming up or the basic expectations of the DM, how are you going to know what is and is not prudent resource management? Take Kobold Hall as an example. Several people have posted they get wiped or need an ER between encounters 4 and 5. Now, is the intent of adventure to have ERs in it? If players take too many what do you do? Throw random encounters at them as a hint?

The players should have no earthly idea what the adventure consists of, the details at least. With streaky rolls and a bit of bad luck or a bit of a bad decision you can find yourself in a bad situation quickly with these encounters. Not knowing what is expected of you in terms of pacing makes it hard to be rational in how you pace yourself.

So.. I am not opposed to the DM and the players each having in mind a set amount of encounters, typically, between expected ERs.

 

[Mengu]

Not knowing what is expected of you in terms of pacing makes it hard to be rational in how you pace yourself.

You guage the situation and use your resources accordingly. An artificial limit of the DM saying there will be 1 encounter today, suddenly makes that encounter extremely easy for the characters because they know to open up with a powerful daily, follow it up with an action point and another daily. This is not something they would normally do when they see a ragged band of orcs. It's much more interesting when they take it slow, not knowing what they are facing, only to realize mid-fight that this is almost more than they can handle, and start resorting to action points and daily powers.

 

[malacapricornis]

You misread what I wrote. Players who havent gone through the MM or the DMG have no idea until they run into a lot of these monsters what the monsters or traps can do. Now, for them to also not know that the DM or adventure writer is expecting them to average X/ER means they cannot rationally conserve resources.

They just don't know. I see what you are saying about adapting to what happens. I just don't think that is the best way in a game of limited information to ration or budget party resources per encounter or per ER.

Again, take Kobold Hall with 5 1st level characters. Between enc 4 and 5 is going to be troublesome for a lot of players. I am not saying tell the party "hey, every 4 encounters or every 5 encounters take an ER or else you get a wandering monster sent your way". What I am saying is have an understanding that you should budget your resources for perhaps 2 lvl +0 encounters, 2 lvl +1 encounters, and 1 lvl +2-3 encounters or whatever. And then players have the expectation that they can use on average 1 daily per encounter per party and an action point every other encounter per player.

 

[Mengu]

And then players have the expectation that they can use on average 1 daily per encounter per party and an action point every other encounter per player.

I guess I make the second half of this assumption by default. The first part will depend on the level of the party, but at 1st-4th level, that assumption would also hold true. I just would rather these be loose assumptions than contracts between the DM and players.